


However I Had To

by luzial



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dalish Elves, F/M, One Shot, POV Lavellan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 18:05:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7184588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luzial/pseuds/luzial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short Lavellan POV of the first flirt option with Solas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	However I Had To

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this a long time ago when I first played Inquisition. At the time, I thought I was going to write a series of short pieces filling in some gaps during the game’s timeline and giving some insight into what my Lavellan thought. But then I started working on Ruins (or, actually, the thing that eventually became Ruins - which is another story), and I abandoned most of these old drafts.
> 
> I cleaned this one up tonight because I liked it better than most of the others. This scene depicts the first “flirt” option you have with Solas, which I wanted to dive into a bit because it’s so ambiguous and so subtle - barely a flirt, really (especially compared to asking Cullen if he’s taken vows of chastity, for example). Marden, a character in this piece, makes a cameo appearance in Ruins as well. 
> 
> The setup for this is that Lavellan’s been having nightmares (about a wolf, shockingly enough) and Cassandra told her to go talk to that elven apostate about it.

Hours grew into days spent hunched around the so-called “war table” in Haven’s Chantry. While she was no amateur when it came to matters of organization and defense, coordinating troop movements and bargaining with heads of state was entirely foreign to the Herald. She did her best not to doze off as she listened to the Seeker, the spymaster, the diplomat, and the Commander arguing with each other, occasionally turning their attention to her when they needed a voice to break a tie. More than the knowledge that they would further doubt her capabilities if she happened to fall asleep at their war table, Lavellan worried what visions might visit her in dreams. She hated to follow the Seeker’s somewhat condescending advice, but it seemed perhaps time to pay a visit to Solas.

She had no particularly warm feelings for the elf mage, despite whatever similarities they might share. The memory of their first meeting remained forefront in her mind. To close the rift, Solas had grabbed her hand as if it were a tool hovering in mid-air rather than part of her person. Before she could stop him, he had thrust the mark upwards at the great green tear and, somehow, the two had reacted to one another with violent force. The Herald suspected that he had done so with little more than an educated guess as to what might have happened, and was more interested in testing his theory than her own safety. The fact he had watched over her after the disaster at the Conclave did little to persuade her of his good intentions, as she imagined he had only done so because he was curious about the strange magic flowing through her veins. Add to all this his unmarked face and the odd cadence of his speech that bore no resemblance to that of either a Dalish or a city elf, and Lavellan found little reason to trust the man. The clanless were often so for good reason.

During her time as First of the Lavellan clan, a handful of frightened refugees had come to Keeper Deshanna Istimaethoriel to beg for entrance. While it was not an especially common occurrence, the clan’s Keeper had developed a reputation for being generous to a fault and overly willing to accept the elves that other clans might have turned away. Her kindness meant there were often several mages within the camp - a potentially volatile situation which, as First, she had been responsible for keeping in check. As such, she found herself wary of mages who contended they were “self-taught,” let alone a mage who claimed to be a self-taught Dreamer. She knew from her own experiences how inviting the whispers in the night and the shadows at the corners of her eyes could be; without Deshanna’s training, she might have happily surrendered herself to their embrace and become lost beyond the Veil.  

Despite her reservations about Solas, Lavellan knew that Seeker Pentaghast had cause to be concerned. Unchecked nightmares were dangerous to mages in a tactile way, and she needed no more incentive than that to get hers under control. At the first opportunity afforded her, the Herald excused herself from the war table and headed for Solas’ cabin near the inn. His door was ajar, and when she poked her head inside she could see the outline of his form in a chair in front of the fire.

“Excuse me?” she said, rapping her knuckles quickly over the doorframe.

Solas turned toward the door, closing the book he had been reading as he did so. A curious smile crossed his face briefly as he saw her. “Ah, the Chosen of Andraste,” he said as he stood from the chair and crossed the room to meet her outside the cabin. “A blessed hero sent to save us all.”

Lavellan winced at the characterization. The various lofty titles that people had recently insisted upon laying at her feet were making her uncomfortable. Powerful positions with clearly defined expectations - like First of her clan - suited her, but ephemeral titles with ties to legendary human prophets were certainly not that. With the little she knew of Solas, however, she suspected he had specifically invoked this title to see whether she would rise to the bait. For an apostate living in a small town swarming with Chantry forces, he certainly was happy to goad on anyone who entertained him in conversation.  

She recalled a time years ago, not long after she had been selected as First, when a refugee came to her clan from Antiva City after travelling for weeks with little understanding of how to fend for himself in the wilds. He arrived at their camp in the Free Marches dirty and bloodied, his remaining scraps of clothing molded to his body in a mass of mud and gore. Clearly starving and desperate, he all but crawled to the outskirts of the camp with with nothing in the way of protection save a dull dagger in his right hand and the terror in his eyes. He was scared and confused, unfamiliar with anything outside his life in the city’s alienage, and yet still unwilling to humble himself completely before them. He refused to give up his weapon or to speak to anyone but the Keeper.

Lavellan suspected it was this temerity that won the clan over in the end, for she knew her people could be prideful and often bore greater respect for those who do not bend to their will too easily. Perhaps this was also why Solas’ infuriating boldness was the one bit of common ground she could find between them.  _ Solas _ , she thought. Pride in her people’s language. Whoever his parents had been, they had named him well.  _ All the more reason to return his crowing in kind,  _ she told herself, and steeled her resolve to continue on.

“What a dashing introduction, Solas,” Lavellan replied with icy sarcasm. “Unfortunately, at the moment I am here on more  _ mundane _ matters.” His lips curled to a smirk for which she doubted she could ever forgive him but, again, she pressed forward. “That is, Seeker Pentaghast suggested I should speak with you. I’ve ... been having trouble sleeping.”

He arched an eyebrow. “I apologize for your difficulty, Lady Herald, but I can hardly imagine what I would be able to do to lull you to sleep.”

She scowled, inwardly cursing his insistence upon intentionally misinterpreting every word she said. “It’s not that I need assistance falling asleep,” Lavellan explained unnecessarily. “Rather, I am having dreams - well, nightmares if I am being quite honest. I can’t seem to shake them.”

“Nightmares,” he mused. “I suppose our faithful Seeker is concerned that, as you are a mage, you are susceptible to bringing demons back with you when you wake?”

“Seeker Pentaghast isn’t so callous as to say so, but I wouldn’t be surprised,” she answered truthfully. “Personally, I just want a way to make them stop. I find myself dreaming of bad omens and-”

“Bad omens?” he interrupted. “Such as?”

She shook her head, realizing she had said more than she intended. “Unless it is truly necessary for your advice, I would prefer not to say. Call it Dalish superstition if you will,” she said, hating the amusement she noted on his face again. “But some things are best left to dreams.”

“Indeed,” he smiled. “Then, I will be no more intrusive than absolutely necessary.” Lavellan mumbled her gratitude as he continued. “Now, a few questions. First - any history of calling demons into the waking world from your dreams?”

He posed it as a serious question, and she hesitated a moment before realizing this was his idea of a joke. “No,” she replied slowly.

“Very well. Another question. Have you ever slept in a human bed before?”

She stared at him, not following his line of thought. “No,” she finally said.

“And what about in a human town?”

“No,” she replied again, slowly beginning to see where he was going.

“So is it perhaps possible that you are merely unaccustomed to the noises and the nature of this place, and your dreams have been unusually active as a result?”

“It is possible,” Lavellan allowed. “But wouldn’t the noise and, well, the very atmosphere of Haven prevent me from sleeping at all, rather than make me dream more often?”

“Remember that  _ expectations _ are tantamount to reality in the Fade,” Solas explained. “If your sleeping mind is primed to see ill omens, the Fade will bring omens to you in droves, perhaps even preventing you from waking as you usually would.”

She considered this for a moment and realized it was surprisingly worthy advice. “That is actually quite helpful and … pragmatic,” she told him, unable to hide the surprise in her voice.

He smiled back at her. “You expected another long discourse on the nature of the Fade and dreaming, I take it?”

“It’s not that your studies aren’t fascinating, Solas-” she began.

“There is no need to apologize, Lady Herald,” he assured her. “It is fortunate that reality does not work as the Fade does. You expected me to drone on unhelpfully and, were we in the Fade, perhaps I might have done so. You see me as too much of an idle scholar to believe I had practical knowledge that might help you. Too much theory and not enough action, is that correct?”

“Except, perhaps, when you take drastic action based upon little theory and fail to safeguard those around you.” She fixed him with a pointed glare and, to his credit, he did not shrink from her. She hadn’t intended to be so harsh, but his self-congratulatory nature had hit a nerve.

For the first time in the conversation, he hesitated, as if the script from which he was reading had suddenly run out of pages and he found himself unable to offer a witty retort. He stared back into her eyes for a long time, an  _ uncomfortably _ long time, before finally looking at the ground as he crossed his arms behind his back.

“You are angry with me.” It was a statement, not a question, and he seemed quite resigned to the idea.

“Angry is … perhaps too strong of a word, Solas,” she said. “If you intend to fight by my side, I must be able to trust you. That means knowing you won’t endanger me unnecessarily.”

He frowned at her then, the corners of his mouth turning down in such an exaggerated motion that it forced his already pronounced chin forward. “If I had not used your mark to seal that rift, who knows how many more demons might have come pouring out to greet us,” he obstinately fired back. 

“You misunderstand me, Solas,” she tried to explain. “I am not saying your actions were wrong. I would likely have come to the same conclusion if I had been given that chance. But the fact remains you grabbed my hand and used this mark,” Lavellan said as she glanced down at the wretched thing, “without either asking my permission to do so or, I must imagine, having much of an idea what would happen.”

He glared at her with steely eyes, his face still contorted by a frown. Yet again, she forged ahead.

“I only ask that, should you be confronted with a similar decision in the future, you do not make it alone.”

She watched Solas’ face soften then, his frown gone but his expression now unreadable. He stared at her for a long while again until, finally, his eyes left hers for a moment as he looked off toward the Breach in the distance. When he turned back, he gave a quick nod as if making his mind up to something.

“I understand. I will stay, then. At least until the Breach has been closed,” he said, rather suddenly.

“Was - was that in doubt?” she asked.

“I am an apostate mage surrounded by Chantry forces and, unlike you,  _ I _ do not have a divine mark protecting me. Cassandra has been accommodating, but you understand my caution.”

Solas was indignant, yet also unwilling to diminish himself as a result of the injustice he perceived. And while he obviously harbored some amount of resentment toward her, that she might be so easily accepted by the Inquisition’s powers despite their relatively similar positions, it was clear that he could not blame her for what had happened any more than he could blame a stream for flooding its banks after a storm. There was something in his tone, which was surprisingly unguarded, that gave her pause. She had heard that tone before.

She found herself thinking once again of the defiant young man from Antiva City who had made his way to her clan’s camp. His name was Marden and, eventually, he’d told them that he had fled from the alienage in the city and journeyed south to find a Dalish clan that would take him in. He had encountered several before reaching them, but all had chased him away when they realized he was a flat-ear with no talent for magic.

She had been young then, and hot-headed, and she questioned her Keeper’s judgment when Deshanna said they would allow him to stay. The Herald had agreed that it would be undeservedly cruel to throw the young man back to the wilds, but she remained unconvinced that he could truly be a productive member of the clan if he stayed. He had no magic, was painfully weak after his long journey, and had no skills, save what bare minimum the humans in the city had allowed him to learn. She told Deshanna that they should tend his wounds, allow him to camp with them for as long as necessary, and then give him enough supplies to see him safely on his way.

It was then that Deshanna had told her that she was ashamed, in a voice cold and furious. _You would turn him away when he has nothing. No family, no clan, no history, no hope_ , she had said. Her First had foolishly interrupted to ask forgiveness and explain that she was only concerned that he might be a burden upon the clan if he possessed no skills of his own.

_ Who are you to say what skills he possesses, da’len _ , the Keeper had chided.  _ You see him laid bare before you, weakened after a journey more painful than you can possibly dream. Whatever he was before, he is ours now, and we will protect him. _

She had still disagreed with the Keeper, though she was wise enough not to press the matter further. In the end, Marden himself had showed her how right Deshanna was. Though not skillful at hunting, he had become invaluable to the clan within only a few months. The humans he had served in Antiva City used him as a tailor to mend their shirts and hem their breeches. But among her clan, he had quickly found himself sewing the great sails on the aravels, lovingly embellishing them with intricate patterns and runes whenever he had a spare moment. He was gentle and possessed an unmatched wit. And on the day when he received June’s  _ vallaslin _ , he wept tears of joy and the rest of the clan wept with him.

So it was that she recognized in Solas the same desperation and belligerence she had seen from Marden when he had first found her clan. Though he made it clear he would maintain his pride, however subtly and however begrudgingly, Solas was asking her for asylum. Lavellan knew she must grant it. Even if he had chosen to live apart, he was still one of the People. 

“You came here to help, Solas. I won’t let them use that against you,” she told him.

“How would you stop them?” He said it as if asking for a battle plan.

“However I had to,” she answered truthfully, immediately. Perhaps  _ he _ did not recognize Dalish traditions, but she knew the obligations to which she was bound after making such a promise. No family, no clan, no history, no hope - regardless of his situation, she had accepted responsibility for him.

His expression shifted somewhat, his eyebrows rising in a way that suddenly made her question whether she had interpreted his intentions correctly. Of all her new allies, she found him especially difficult to read, but she guessed that he was surprised by her offer.

“Thank you,” he finally responded, and now with such sincerity that she couldn’t doubt his meaning. The Herald nodded curtly before turning back toward the Chantry to rejoin the others.

The clanless apostate had made her see that, whatever else she was to this Inquisition, she was now its Keeper.


End file.
